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Most of the time it includes traveling to a different country, exploring a new culture, or doing something outrageously adventurous like throwing yourself off a plane or bridge.

Yeah.

I’ve got those on my list.

But for some reason my list also includes food. Delicious savory food, baking a cake from scratch, baking my kid’s birthday cakes.

Check, and check.

In fact a couple of months ago I baked 12 cakes from scratch, chocolate cakes.

Dude.

Duuuuuuuude.

But in addition to baking cakes from scratch I also wanted to make my own sauce … or as some Italians refer to it … “Gravy”. I’ve watched Goodfellas, The Sopranos, The Godfather … they all have scenes with sauce. Either the dudes making it or the someone’s mother. Stirring the sauce and having Sunday dinner. I mean we have Sunday dinner but it’s usually rice, beans, and carne asada. And there’s really nothing wrong with that, nothing at all.

But “Gravy” has always been on my list, along with skydiving, visiting Italy, and meeting Robert DeNiro.

It’s up there.

And thanks to the good old public library I was able to finally check out the Sopranos Cookbook I mentioned a couple of weeks ago and whip up a batch of Sunday Gravy … and it only took about four hours.

Dude.

Duuuuuude. Can I tell you how amazingly impressed I was with myself? I dipped the spoon in the savory sauce and brought it up for a taste test. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. It was the kind of awesome that put you in a Zen state of mind. I know I’m Guatemalan through and through, but with that sauce I’m surprised I don’t have some part of me that’s Italian.

I was so happy it had turned out exactly the way I thought it would, because sometimes things don’t work out that way, just like life. You get all jazzed up about a recipe and then it doesn’t end up looking like the picture, or taste the way you thought it would on the first try. Just like life, you get all jazzed up about the future and then you realize you’re barely staying afloat with a life preserver and feel like you’re staring in Shark Week’s I Survived JAWS 2.

I learned … you need time and practice to perfect it. Both cooking and life.

So I was a little worried that I might need to make a couple of batches before I had that Holy-Crap-feeling.

But I’m happy to report that I was lucky enough my first time.

In fact I hope luck strikes more than once, because this entire cookbook is filled of Bucket List recipes, so it might take me a while to get through it.